Janet Silbernagel is a landscape ecologist with a design background, specializing in landscape conservation strategies, applying landscape ecological theory, scenario modeling, and geospatial analyses. Silbernagel started her career as a landscape architect with the US. Forest Service before receiving her PhD in Forest Science from Michigan Technological University. Previously, Silbernagel served on the faculty of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Washington State University. She has been on the faculty at UW-Madison since 1999, where she directs the Professional Master’s program in Environmental Conservation within the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, designed to train conservation leaders internationally. Through these roles and her research, Dr. Silbernagel travels between the Great Lakes, Europe, and China.

Recently she has worked on scenarios of forest conservation effectiveness in a changing climate (with The Nature Conservancy); citizen engagement and spatial literacy in Great Lakes coastal communities (with NOAA Sea Grant); landscape connectivity of conservation subdivisions (in WI); and studies to understand dynamics of wetland systems for crane conservation in both China and Wisconsin (with the International Crane Foundation).